Contentions

The rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe has been harder to ignore in the last month. The war in Gaza has given a green light for Jew haters to take to the streets of the continent’s cities to vent their spleen at Israel’s efforts to defend itself against Islamists intent on genocide. But the decision of Britain’s government to threaten the Jewish state with a ban on arms sales shows just how far the discussion about the Middle East conflict has been perverted by prejudice.

The announcement that the UK would suspend arms exports to Israel if the fighting in Gaza were to resume is a victory for the Liberal Democratic members of Britain’s coalition government over its Conservative majority. Tory Prime Minister David Cameron has not always been the most stalwart friend of Israel during his term of office but he has stood up for Israel’s right of self-defense after Hamas launched a new war in which it rained down thousands of rockets on Israeli cities and used terror tunnels to breach the border. But his allies in Westminster are hardened foes of Israel and, aided by the pressure generated by massive anti-Israel demonstrations, have worn down Cameron.

The advocates of this semi-embargo claim it is nothing more than an assertion of British neutrality in the conflict. The fact that they have not included the sale of components of the Iron Dome missile defense system purchased in Britain is also seen as a gesture indicating their good will toward Israel even as they push for a cessation of hostilities.

But the notion that Western democracies ought to be neutral in a battle between the one genuine democracy in the Middle East as well as the lone embattled Jewish state and a vicious Islamist dictatorship whose goal is to destroy Israel is indefensible. In effect, the British are saying that while they are not opposed to the Israelis using technology to shoot down rockets fired at Gaza, they believe that the Jewish state should do nothing to prevent those missiles from being shot at their airspace or to stop Hamas from digging tunnels they can use to cross over into Israel and carry out terrorist atrocities.

The point of this British pressure is not just to hamper the Israel Defense Forces’ efforts to seek out and destroy Hamas missile launches or terror centers. The purpose of the gesture is to add to the growing campaign of international pressure that seeks to force Israel to make concessions to Hamas in order to prevent further fighting. Though Hamas has repeatedly turned down and broken ceasefires and the entire war was fought largely at the insistence of the Islamist group, the onus for ending this round of fighting is largely being placed on Israel.

But the proposed concessions, such as the freeing of terrorist prisoners or an end to the blockade of Gaza that makes it more difficult for the Islamists to gain new supplies of arms, rockets, and materials used to fortify the strip, are hardly neutral. If Israel is forced to give in, the result would be to further empower Hamas and to reward terrorism. That would only hasten the inevitable next round of fighting.

It should be understood that any embargo on Israel would not be matched by a ban on arms sales or funding for Hamas from its sponsors in Turkey and Qatar. Those concessions will also make it easier for Hamas to rearm and to import the materials it uses to both protect its arsenal, leaders and fighters (though not the people of Gaza) and to build new tunnels from which they hope to send terrorists to kill Jews.

How would the Brits have treated a decision on the part of the United States in 1940 to approve the sale of anti-aircraft guns to the one nation standing alone against the Nazis, but not other armaments designed to take the fight to Germany? The fact that it doesn’t seem to occur to anyone in the British government that such an analogy is spot on speaks volumes about the level of prejudice against Israel.

Seen in that light, it’s clear that European neutrality is not only not very neutral, but also a shot in the arm for Hamas in its war against Israel. At a time when anti-Semitic invective that is sometimes presented as thinly veiled anti-Zionism is becoming part of mainstream culture in Europe, Britain’s decision to treat Israel’s efforts to defend itself against terrorism as beyond the pale is deeply troubling.

As usual the British like to face both ways at the same time. On the one hand, together with the UN, EU, USA and a number of other western democracies, they support Israel’s right to defend itself, which Israel does in full compliance with the Laws of War. Yet, on the other hand gives full succor to enemies of Israel who are dedicated to eradicating the state and the Jews.

Apparently, Islamist attempt to undermine our values and to try to convert our children, do not persuade Nick Clegg and his followers that accusing Israel of disproportionate responses to a proscribed terrorist organisation simply makes Iran, Hamas’s backers, that much more contemptuous of the West. This is where the real danger lies.